FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT COMPLAINTS - PAGE 2

Five years ago, Sheila Newman and her family bought a pair of timeshares, hoping they would enjoy years of vacations in Florida's Panhandle and Myrtle Beach, S.C. Instead, it became difficult to take a vacation at all, so Newman listed her properties on a timeshare sales website. Two Florida companies called, offering ready-to-deal buyers. All Newman had to do was send them a check. Six months later, Newman is out the money — and still owns both of her timeshares. "Something needs to be done to these people," said Newman, 56. "It's just a mess."

Gay Lazarus panicked a bit after realizing she had accidentally downloaded onto her home computer spyware potentially capable of corrupting files, damaging a hard-drive or stealing her identity. Lazarus, 66, a Coral Springs resident and travel agent, is a customer of AT&T's high-speed Internet service. She quickly called the company and followed a recommendation to sign up for a six-month tech support service plan called ConnectTech for $149. Often, support representatives can guide customers through the repair process by phone.

Consumer officials will have an easier time tracking the complaint records of businesses, thanks to a new computer system. The Palm Beach County Division of Consumer Affairs installed the system on April 1. The change allows employees to access statistics on complaints about home repair, automotive, retail and other categories, Director Lawrence Breeden said. Employees can pull up a list of complaints against an individual business, too, with a breakdown of the numbers of requests for complaint forms, open and pending complaints, and closed cases.

Mortgages and account balance disclosures prompted the largest number of consumer complaints against banks filed with Florida regulators last year, according to a new report from a Miami bank analyst. Mortgages accounted for 30 percent of complaints filed and account balance disclosures another 21 percent, a greater concentration in those two categories than the previous year, the report said. Many account balance complaints were linked to new fees that customers did not expect.

7,305 Complaints about mortgage fraud and questionable foreclosure rescue services filed with state regulators in 2008, according to the Florida Attorney General's Office. No. 2 Florida's national ranking in 2008 for mortgage fraud incidents, which hit an all-time high last year, according to a report by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute. Check our searchable database for the types of complaints filed with the Florida Attorney General's Office in 2008, and information on how to file one. See: SunSentinel.

Shoppers in South Florida complained less in 2011 about bad service to local, state and national consumer groups than in years prior. Consumer affair offices across the state saw a significant drop in the amount of complaints, including the Better Business Bureau, which reported the number of complaints in South Florida dropped nearly 12 percent from 2010 to 2011. "This is a sign of the economic times," said Joel Mutter, supervisor of consumer protection for Broward County . "People are not making bigger purchases anymore if they don't have to. " The Broward County Consumer Affairs Office saw a 43 percent decrease in the amount of complaints filed against locally owned companies from 2010 to 2011.

For the first time, Florida consumers can now look up online whether doctors and other health professionals have complaints pending against them, information that until now had been very hard to get. Unresolved disciplinary allegations against doctors, nurses and other practitioners have been public information for decades, but could only be obtained with a request to the Florida Department Health, which regulates them. On Friday, the department posted the information on each practitioner's online profile, capping a yearlong effort to "give more transparency and accountability," said spokeswoman Eulinda Smith.

ow appraisals continue to hurt the housing market, according to The National Association of Realtors. The trade group said recently that 9 percent of real estate agents report delayed sales contracts in the past three months because of low appraisals. In addition, 13 percent said a contract was renegotiated to a lower price because an appraisal came in below the agreed-upon price. “Banks frequently request numerous sales comparisons, well beyond the customary three comps used in the past, with little consideration that some of those properties may be discounted foreclosures used to valuate a traditional home in good condition,” NAR President Ron Phipps said in a statement.

A leading South Florida hurricane shutter company may have violated state-mandated work timelines, as it struggles in a bad economy to complete orders after taking tens of thousands of dollars in deposits. State regulators have received almost two dozen recent complaints about Rolladen, a 42-year-old business based in Hallandale Beach. In addition, 11 civil lawsuits have been filed against the company in Broward and Palm Beach County courts since 2010. Rolladen's name has become synonymous with roll-up shutters, which the company introduced into the United States.